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Why do ‘wicked’ witches wear pointed hats? The real history explained
There have been many examples of pointed hats in history, but it remains unclear how any of them became a must-wear for the witches
We’re off to see… the Wicked Witch of the West, as she returns to the silver screen in Wicked: For Good, the second part of the fantasy epic based on the popular stage musical. But where would Elphaba be without her trademark look, including the iconic black, pointed and wide-brimmed hat? Along with a cat, broomstick and black robes, the pointed hat is a required feature of any depiction of the typical ‘evil witch’, and has been for centuries. How it became the headgear of choice, however, remains the subject of numerous theories – as there is no single hat to point the way to the archetypal witch. The myth of the alewives Before getting to the major theories, there is one that can be debunked. The internet is well-populated with the claim that the image of the witch began with alewives, medieval women who brewed ale in their homes and sold it locally. Dominating the brewing industry for a time, these women could achieve a degree of financial independence. In an era where any woman who baulked social norms was suspicious, this autonomy would have been enough to single them out, putting them at risk of being accused of witchcraft. In addition, the fact that they stood over bubbling cauldrons while brewing and wearing pointed hats to be easily spotted at markets, it is clear why some have argued that alewives were the inspiration for the image of the witch. Except, there is just zero historical evidence to back this up. The highly symbolic history of the pointed witch hat Instead, theories have taken in pointy hats from throughout history, some with highly symbolic meaning. The Phrygian cap of antiquity, for instance, came to represent liberty and freedom in the American and French Revolutions of the 18th century, while the ancient Romans presented freed slaves with a special pointed felt cap, called a pileus. In medieval Europe, the hennin came into fashion: an extremely tall cone with flowing material hanging out of the top. Yet while it certainly has a resemblance to the witch’s hat, it was the preserve of noblewomen rather than the typically poor and disenfranchised targets that most often provoked accusations of witchcraft. Persecution and prejudice Other pointed hats became symbols of persecution, which could be a more promising place to look. The Fourth Lateran Council, a meeting of church leaders convoked by the pope in 1215, decreed that all Jews had to distinguish themselves by wearing distinctive clothing. In some regions, this included a tall, conical hat called the pileum cornutum. That one was usually yellow or white, though. Quiz | Would you have been accused of witchcraft? A more likely origin can be found in the persecution of the Religious Society of Friends, a Christian movement founded in the mid-17th century. Better known as the Quakers, they rejected the established doctrines of the church, refused to conform with many social norms, and they believed in equality for all. Two upshots of this were that the Quakers would not take off their hats in the accepted display of respect and they permitted women to preach, which caused consternation in England and colonial America. Quaker women became a source of ridicule and condemnation, and their hats – which got pointier over time – came to be associated with the evils of society. Watch now | What is a witch? Don't miss episode 1 in our Academy on the history of witchcraft While none of these theories are conclusive, a pattern does emerge of pointy hats being worn by minority groups. So, as the witch hunts took hold in Europe, it is possible to see a rationale to equip the typical image of a witch with a hat that has a history of identifying someone as a troublesome ‘other’. By the 18th century, the witches seen in woodcuts firmly established the pointed hat as part of the uniform. In the 1720 book, The History of Witches and Wizards, for instance, a behatted witch can be seen flying on a broomstick – alongside a demon, no less – enshrining the conical pointed hat in the spooky, fantastical tradition.
Don’t fear the fairies – but do allow a little enchantment into your life
In an age in which we are no longer mortally afraid of the supernatural, there's space to enjoy freely magic and ritual, Professor Ronald Hutton tells David Musgrove
Most of us, these days, do not believe in fairies. But maybe we should allow a little more enchantment into our lives – that is the Life Lesson from History that Professor Ronald Hutton would have us consider. In late December every year, on the winter solstice, I like to make a mini-pilgrimage to Avebury at dawn. Avebury is, of course, one of Britain’s most impressive prehistoric megalithic monuments – a huge Neolithic stone circle, surrounded by a massive bank and ditch, with two smaller stone circles inside. It’s so big, in fact, that inside the stone circle is an entire village and a pub (which are obviously substantially later in date than the megaliths). I’m not alone in heading to this huge henge for the solstice – many are drawn to it, and there is something of a carnival vibe. I get up at about 4am and generally make some of my friends get up as well (they thank me not for this). We drive for an hour in the dark and then go for a jog for a few miles from the stone circle, past the enormous and abundantly enigmatic Silbury Hill, up to the West Kennet Long Barrow, and then back along the avenue of standing stones that leads into the henge and circle. I try to plan it to arrive back in Avebury as dawn breaks, but I never get the timing right, and it’s invariably overcast anyway, so I’ve never witnessed an impressive spiritual sunrise moment. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/05/HEPKG2avebury-846ee37.jpg" width="5100" height="3400" alt="A large rock takes up half the image. In the background a long line of people gather together under the purple sky" title="Avebury in Wiltshire is home to Britain’s largest stone circle, which is so big that inside are an entire village and a pub (built much later) (Image by Alamy)" /> I thought about Avebury after I’d chatted to Professor Hutton, one of the leading experts on the history of belief, ritual and the supernatural. I invited him to talk about his life lessons from history and I was delighted when he promptly replied, with the following message: “Perhaps I could offer some thought on the conveniences of living in a modern disenchanted world, in which we no longer feel generally menaced by fairies, ghosts, demons or spirits, and people who do feel the presence of a spirit world or the divine can interact with it as a private matter and without being called to account for it by authorities.” I was keen to understand what he meant by the ‘modern disenchanted world’, and he explained that it was in essence a place where fairies are not at large to cause mischief, witches won’t make your children ill, and lettuce leaves are unlikely to harbour demons (I’ll come back to that last point). “ I hear a lot these days about the world having lost that thrilling sense of the supernatural: a real belief in dragons, fairies, witches and wizards, and a general sense of wonder in the world. And I understand that feeling, having spent quite a lot of my professional life studying beliefs in exactly these things, but my basic argument is it’s actually a real asset living in a disenchanted world,” Professor Hutton says. “First, because you don’t have to be afraid of the supernatural. And second, because most people don’t have to be afraid of the supernatural in you.” Back at Avebury, I’m guessing that quite a lot of the people turning up there on the winter solstice have not lost that sense of the supernatural. There are always crowds of people flowing around the stones, and more people stood crowning the top of the henge bank. It’s a busy place on the winter solstice. Among the stones, you’ll find people dressed in garb that you might describe as druidic, actively celebrating and communing, banging drums, singing, chanting, blowing horns and things that look suspiciously like didgeridoos. They appear to be practising what I imagine are pagan rites. I’ve never asked these celebrants what they’re doing, and I’ve never felt any need to either join in or intervene. I assume they are looking for something that isn’t readily available in the 21st century. I also guess that there are a lot of people who are spectators, looking in from the disenchanted world, sitting on the sidelines and hoping for entertainment over enlightenment. As far as I can tell, there is no sense of antagonism between these groups, and no obvious sign of anyone being challenged for their actions or beliefs, even if they might be somewhat unorthodox. This, says Hutton, is something we should celebrate, and use to our advantage. “People can actually be what they wish – express themselves – without their neighbours beating them up, dragging them into court, or in modern times, breaking their windows or posting horrid things through their letter boxes.” If we wish, we are afforded the best of both worlds. We can bewitch ourselves with ritual, legend, spirituality – but we don’t have to live in fear of being accused of sorcery. “It’s only safe to be a witch in a society that doesn’t believe you’re a witch,” points out Hutton. Read more | A medieval mystery: the green-coloured children found in an English village Policing the unknown Ronald Hutton has spent his academic life exploring these fears – what they meant, how they manifested, and crucially, how they were policed. “There was the constant nagging fear of orthodoxy needing to be policed, to get rid of heretics,” he explains. Such fears included “a real belief that if your child falls sick and the local doctor, if there is one, can’t work out what’s wrong with them – they’ve actually been bewitched by a neighbour.” Obviously it would be ridiculous to suggest that we don’t still live with fears today, but says Professor Hutton, they are of a different magnitude to what people had to contend with in the past. “Today we face all sorts of dangers in daily life – car crashes, muggers, drunken revellers, nutcases, hustlers.” But these, he says, are nothing compared to the terrifying reach of the unseen that haunted our ancestors. “If you went out at night in the countryside, you were in danger of being blighted by fairies or led astray by goblins. And there was also the issue of people being afraid of what you might do or believe in supernatural terms.” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/05/2AHX04Edemons-ea8e85e.jpg" width="4724" height="3188" alt="A woodcut depicts gremlins, dragons and goblins. In the centre a warlock or wizard sits at a table" title="An early woodcut showing gremlins, dragons and goblins, summoned by a wizard or warlock. Magical creatures were once a source of fear in society (Image by Alamy)" /> And sometimes the fear went further still: not just suspicion of others, but fear of the world itself. “The lurking presence of demons in the air all around you. There’s an anecdote about a 14th-century nun who forgot to make the sign of the cross over a lettuce leaf in a salad. As a result, she swallowed a demon that was sitting invisibly upon it and was inflicted with all sorts of terrible digestive problems until she was exorcised.” That might sound a little absurd, I know, but that’s because we are today so far removed from the world view that these people had. I’m reminded of a HistoryExtra podcast conversation I had with the social historian Patrick Joyce, regarding his book about the vanished world of European peasants, Remembering Peasants: A Personal History of a Vanished World (Penguin, 2024). In his mind, that is a place most of us simply don’t understand at all. “Their world was full of spirits, but then the world was a kind of a thing in itself, a natural thing, in which they didn’t invoke spirits necessarily,” Professor Joyce told me. “If you behaved to the world as you felt the world should be behaved to, ie you respected the soil and the way in which it should be worked, you showed a solidarity with nature, and if you showed solidarity with nature, nature would show solidarity.” Joyce’s argument is that the rapid decline of peasantry in the 20th century has been overlooked and understudied. So it leaves us with an inability to understand properly how they saw things, and I guess what they were afraid of. A sense of control Back to Professor Hutton: “People in charge of society all over Europe began to lose their fear of these things from about 1660 onwards, but ordinary people, especially in the countryside, were burdened by them right up to the early 20th century.” So how did this change? What led us away from that weird world of magic and menace? According to Ronald Hutton, it’s a matter of pragmatism. Let’s take witches for instance. “One very good reason why witch-hunting came to an end in Europe is that Europeans realised there were no benefits. Communities that had witch hunts and put to death their neighbours as witches did not have healthier children, better weather, or better working farm equipment. On the contrary, they tended to be decimated, divided, and traumatised. It just wasn’t profitable.” If these fears didn’t produce positive results, the obvious question is why did they persist? What human need did they serve? Ronald Hutton is clear: they gave people a sense of agency. “You have someone to blame. The world seems a bit more manageable, because you can take action: hunt a witch; carry out an exorcism; hang up a rowan wood cross over your door to keep out bad luck.” And more deeply, they offered explanations for the inexplicable. “All over the world, people have wanted to blame somebody for things going remorselessly wrong. There are three entities on the hit list, and if you believe in one of these, you don’t tend to believe in the others. So societies dotted around worldwide tend to divide up between them.” First to blame, says Hutton, are angry or evil land spirits, fairies, demons. Secondly, “the human dead who’ve taken a dislike to you, vengeful ghosts, offended ancestors”. And the third, he explains, are evil human beings who’ve been working magic, in other words, witches. “But the point about all these three are there are remedies to all of them. So people feel less vulnerable and more empowered in the midst of what traditionally is an overwhelmingly powerful natural world, which nobody really understands.” Where it gets a little sobering though, is that the fear wasn’t just psychological – it could be fatal. Hutton recounts studies from American doctors in the 1940s, trying to understand why soldiers fighting in the Pacific were dying of minor wounds, apparently under the misapprehension that they had been seriously injured. These American medics looked at interwar medical records from doctors working in colonial possessions of imperial powers. They carried out autopsies on indigenous people in these colonies who believed they’d been fatally cursed, and observed why that might have happened. “Your system is bombarded by a constant tidal wave of adrenaline, which suppresses the immune system,” said Hutton, “and if you have a latent defect in a vital organ, the body breaks that open and people die.” So yes, it seems that believing in the supernatural could kill, under those circumstances. This is why, Hutton says, it’s such a gift that we no longer have to believe. “It’s so nice to have got rid of all that stuff.” A time for enchantment On the flip side of that though, if you do want a little magic in your life, that’s not a bad thing, according to the professor. “People often stabilise their lives in all sorts of societies by having what scholars slightly patronisingly call a ‘myth to live by’. A religion. A personal guardian spirit. A belief in certain aspects of the preternatural. These are not just comforting – they’re beneficial. They give confidence. They build character. They enable people to explore the world profitably in all sorts of ways. They work extremely well. I would be the last person to suggest that none of these entities actually exist. I’d never suggest that these belief systems are necessarily false. It’s just they’re not proven so we can take or leave them.” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/05/GettyImages-2188133124chirstianity-478107c.jpg" width="3896" height="5564" alt="A drawn illustration shows the Virgin Mary, dressed in blue robes and holding baby Jesus. They are surrounded by a pink rose frame" title="The Virgin Mary and Child, surrounded by a pink rose, are depicted in this illustrated Vita Christi (Life of Christ) from the 15th century (Image by Getty Images)" /> Over recent decades people have been leaving, rather than taking, Christianity in the UK. Church of England attendance has been on the decline, though a recent survey does suggest a revival of late. But this is where the lesson from history comes in because now, maybe more than most other times in history, you can – if you wish – DIY your own religion. You can look to whatever spiritual or magical force you choose, and engage with it however you wish. There’s one time and place, where we might draw a parallel though: Roman London. If you travelled back in time to there, Hutton says, “you’d find yourself surrounded by an enormous range of deities, philosophies, and belief systems … with no formal structure to decide which are best. “And we’re simply reverting to that, with the tremendous multiculturalism and multi-ethnicity now – which Roman Britain had.” Read more | Prehistoric religion: a pagan riddle we will never solve? That might sound chaotic – but for Professor Hutton, it’s full of possibility. “Given that diversity and multiculturalism – whether people like it or not – has actually happened, people will get more used to it. And, with that wonderful adaptability of our species, find ways of turning it to their advantage. “I also take an immense comfort from the fact that I get complete radio silence from the supernatural with so much else to worry about in my professional and personal life. It’s great to be able to dispense with that. It’s great to be able to – if I am alone – go to bed alone in a particular room and not worry about anything else being there.” Ronald Hutton, I think, seems to be quite optimistic about the possibilities open to us if we do allow a little bit of room for the unknown in our disenchanted environment. “We can have the best of both worlds. The excitement of belief and possible encounters with supernatural worlds – without needing to be terrified of them as people often were in the past. And without needing to fear that our neighbours or the authorities will arrest us or beat us up because they think we have the wrong attitude to these things.” DIYing my beliefs I’ve never met a spirit, or a fairy, goblin or anything else out of the ordinary in the night. But I do love a good ghost story – Danny Robins’s Uncanny podcasts are my go-to when I’m not checking over HistoryExtra episodes. And I do love visiting prehistoric monuments, particularly at times of the year when I think people in the past have identified a certain liminal looseness in the boundary with the supernatural world. Having chatted to Ronald Hutton, I suspect this is all driven by an unmet need for that thrilling sense of the supernatural. So maybe next solstice, I shouldn’t run past, but rather stop and ask those folks celebrating around the stones at Avebury what they are actually doing. The beauty of being alive today, in Britain at least, is that they are at liberty to do whatever it is they think makes sense, and this quote from Hutton’s excellent book Pagan Britain (Yale University Press, 2013) sums it up nicely: “The relics of Britain’s pagan past offer a powerful challenge and stimulus to the modern imagination. They also have in common … an ability to defy full understanding and confident interpretation … One logical response to this trait is to encourage a multiplicity of interpretations, in which different people, and groups of them, reconstruct the pagan past subjectively, according to their own instincts and desires, within the limits of the available evidence.” Read more | Scotland's season of the witch Obviously I couldn’t finish my chat with Professor Hutton without asking him the question that I’m sure he gets asked any time anyone interviews him: what does he actually believe in? “If I have met a spirit, I haven’t been aware of the fact, so I have no personal experience of the divine or the supernatural. I have met an awful lot of people who have had these experiences, or at least believe they have them, and they sound pretty convincing to me. “So I have no overall frame of interpretation as to the nature of the cosmos. I find beliefs very exciting. I find some more attractive than others. Those that are more liberal and permissive and less prescriptive and repressive. But that’s a reflection of my personal politics. If you come down to the question: do I have religion? What do I believe in? I always in the end give the same answer, which is that, I never say.” This article is part of HistoryExtra's new Life Lessons from History Substack newsletter. Subscribe to the newsletter for more articles and podcasts exploring the ways in which history can help us live better, happier, healthier or more productive lives.
In 16th and 17th-century Scotland, many hundreds of ‘witches’ were put to death – 10 times the proportion executed in England. Martha McGill asks what drove the killings
In November 1590, a servant named Geillis Duncan from East Lothian was interrogated by her employer, David Seton. According to Newes from Scotland, a 1591 pamphlet that included a report of the case, Geillis used to sneak out of her master’s house at night. She also “took in hand to help all such as were troubled or grieved with any kind of sickness or infirmity” and performed “many matters most miraculous”. Suspicions aroused, Seton questioned Duncan about how she worked her cures. When she gave no answer, he tortured her with thumbscrews and by “binding or wrenching her head with a cord or rope”. Still she remained silent. Finally, Seton and others searched her for a ‘devil’s mark’ – a blemish or insensitive spot created by Satan – and found one on her throat. She broke down and confessed “that all her doings were done by the wicked allurements and enticements of the devil, and that she did them by witchcraft”. Witchcraft had been criminalised in 1563, and there had been a handful of prosecutions since. But Duncan’s confession kicked off something new – Scotland’s first large-scale witch-hunt. What’s striking about this panic over supposed black magic is just how much more intense and lethal it was than witch-hunting in other European countries – perhaps most notably England. Read more | Why was King James VI and I obsessed with witch hunts? Following her interrogation (involving torture), Geillis Duncan claimed to have participated in a night-time witches’ gathering, also known as a sabbat, at North Berwick kirk. She alleged that other locals were present, and as many as 70 people were ultimately accused. Their confessions detailed bizarre and alarming practices. Supposedly they had sailed across the sea in sieves, meeting at the kirk to dance and sing. The devil had preached from the pulpit, and they had kissed his buttocks. Some of the accused also claimed to have attacked King James VI, casting spells to harm him or raising storms to sink his ships. Newes from Scotland reported that the devil considered James VI “the greatest enemy he hath in the world” – a statement designed to flatter a monarch who believed himself divinely appointed. But James was also fearful of the devil’s designs on him, and involved himself directly in the interrogation of the accused witches. Blame began to make its way up the social scale, and the king’s own cousin, the Earl of Bothwell, was accused of heading a conspiracy against the monarch. Although he was eventually acquitted, Bothwell’s political career was ruined, and he was forced into exile. The last executions resulting from the North Berwick trials were in 1592, but the fallout from the witch-hunt endured far longer. The idea of the threat of witchcraft had been promulgated from the highest social echelons, and was further publicised in 1597 when James VI published Daemonologie, a book about the devil’s wiles. Mass witch-hunts swept Scotland again in 1628–30, 1649 and 1661–62. The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft, a database recording known prosecutions, has identified 3,837 accused. Execution rates are difficult to establish but may have been in the region of two-thirds. By these metrics, Scotland’s execution rate per head of population may have been about five times the European average, and 10 times that in England. Who were the ‘witches’? Those accused of witchcraft were usually of middle age or older. Though rarely wealthy, they were not typically destitute. People from society’s middling ranks had the strongest economic ties to their neighbours, and were most likely to become embroiled in quarrels. Sometimes local healers or cunning folk were targeted, but most of the accused were not magical practitioners of any kind. Men were sometimes prosecuted for witchcraft. One of the victims of the North Berwick trials was a Haddington schoolmaster called John Fian. According to Newes from Scotland – the primary focus of which was Fian’s case – he confessed under torture to having served as the devil’s clerk at witches’ meetings. Other crimes ascribed to him by Newes from Scotland and the trial transcript included throwing cats into the sea to raise storms and magically lighting up a horse’s ears while travelling by night. Perhaps the oddest story told how Fian became obsessed with the sister of one of his pupils. When she rejected his attentions, he asked the boy to bring him three of the girl’s pubic hairs, promising in return to refrain from beating him in the classroom. The boy’s attempt to take the hairs awoke his sister, who complained to their mother. After a sound beating, the boy confessed the scheme. His crafty mother substituted the desired pubic hairs with three strands from a cow. When Fian eagerly brewed up a love spell, the cow reportedly came barging in, “leaping and dancing upon him, and following him forth… to what place so ever he went”. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/04/G37Y28cmyk-9a5a776.jpg" width="3074" height="2048" alt="An illustration of man on a horse. A man bewitching a cow can be seen in the background. Gallows and a church are also visible." title="A woodcut in Newes from Scotland (1591), a pamphlet reporting the North Berwick witch trials, depicts John Fian enchanting a cow and adding torches to his horse’s ears." /> Fian was something of an outlier: about 85 per cent of those convicted of witchcraft in Scotland were female. Women were more likely to work in domestic spaces and to be blamed for domestic misfortunes. Misogyny was another factor. In the late 17th century, lecturers at Aberdeen University taught that women were more susceptible to demons because they “believe more easily, discern less, and are more driven by desires for revenge and pleasure”. Men who became witches, the lecturers added, were “often effeminate, timid, credulous, fickle, and disturbed in judgment like women”. The Scottish kirk was also a patriarchal institution. The Calvinist leader John Knox, who was probably involved in drafting the 1563 act that made witchcraft a capital offence, did have circles of female confidants. Yet he is better remembered for The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women (1558), in which he asserted that women were “weak, frail, impatient, feeble and foolish”. But Scotland was not any more misogynistic than other parts of Europe; indeed, women actually made up a higher proportion of those accused in England. Misogyny can’t explain the relative severity of witch-hunting north of the border. Capital punishment Legal frameworks provide a crucial starting point for understanding the differences between witch-hunting in England and Scotland. England’s 1563 and 1604 witchcraft acts prescribed different penalties according to the severity of the offence. By the terms of the Scottish act, any use of “witchcraft, sorcery and necromancy” was punishable by death. So, too, was consulting witches, though this was not enforced. Some convicted witches were given other sentences, such as banishment, but Scottish punishments remained harsher than those typically meted out south of the border. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/04/BAL234052cmyk-543dd44.jpg" width="3570" height="2378" alt="The devil speaks to witches in another woodcut from Newes from Scotland. By the time the North Berwick witch-hunt was over, some 70 people had been accused. (Photo by Bridgeman)" title="The devil speaks to witches in another woodcut from Newes from Scotland. By the time the North Berwick witch-hunt was over, some 70 people had been accused. (Photo by Bridgeman)" /> In addition, Scottish interrogators made more use of torture to extract confessions. This practice was illegal unless authorised by a warrant from the privy council, the main executive governmental body, but zealous ministers and lairds sometimes overlooked that prohibition. Physical torture of the kind used against Geillis Duncan seems to have been relatively uncommon, but sleep deprivation was probably widely employed. Another coercive interrogation method was witch-pricking, by which the accused was searched and pricked with pins to find a ‘devil’s mark’. Martha Semple (or Sempell), a “well-favoured and genteel” girl of 17 or 18 from Renfrewshire, was investigated for witchcraft in 1697. According to one record, she was twice searched for the devil’s mark, and “the pricker missed not to search the very soles of her feet and other more secret places, for when there was any difficulty to find the mark they did quite unclothe them”. In a society that prized women’s modesty, this ritual would have been deeply humiliating. Read more | The Pendle Witches: what happened in the infamous Lancashire witch trial? Trials also differed between England and Scotland. English judicial processes were largely centralised, and witch trials were typically held in county assize courts presided over by judges appointed by the crown. Before 1662, most accused witches in Scotland were tried in haphazard local courts overseen by commissioners who might have little or no legal training. Though the central court was relatively lenient, execution rates in local trials may have been higher than 90 per cent. Mary Cunningham was tried in Culross in 1644. Her advocate “gave in such defences as could not be answered by the procurator fiscal, who had no skill of law”. The commissioners admitted defeat, and petitioned the privy council to have her tried at the central court in Edinburgh instead. Mary was lucky. Most accused witches did not have the resources to hire a lawyer, and they were not permitted to speak in their own defence. Creating a godly state Particular political and religious contexts underpinned Scottish witch-hunts, which sometimes erupted during periods of economic hardship or political unrest when community tensions ran higher and the authorities were keen to appease God’s wrath. More broadly, they reflected a drive on the part of both church and state to transform Scotland into a godly nation. Following the 1560 Reformation, kirk sessions were established to enforce religious conformity and tackle sins such as blasphemy, swearing, drunkenness, profaning the Sabbath and illicit fornication. Ministers did not believe every accusation. In Ayr in 1633, Margaret McCall accused Agnes Dunschit of being “a rank witch who should be burnt quick”. McCall claimed that Dunschit had come to her house on a thundery night and told her to renounce her baptism. Yet the accuser could offer no proof, and the kirk – bearing in mind that McCall was “a drunkard and keeps a bad house” – ordered her to declare publicly that she had lied. Sometimes, however, ministers or local lairds did take accusations seriously. This was particularly likely if accusations covered a long period and were voiced by multiple people, or during periods of mass witch-hunting. Arrest and interrogation typically followed, at which point the nature of the accusations might evolve. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/05/GettyImages-918908272cmyk-22ae600.jpg" width="4994" height="3327" alt="A ship is wrecked in the sea, with people left stranded in the water. People watch from the shore and one has her arms raised." title="A ship is wrecked in a storm raised by a witch in a coloured woodcut of 1562. Women were far more likely to be accused of witchcraft than men" /> Neighbours commonly accused each other of acts of maleficium, or magical harm. In Kirkcaldy in 1633, Janet Allan testified that she had refused to give Alison Dick some sour bakes, after which the latter had declared that Allan’s children would beg and that tadpoles would nest in her husband’s hair. The husband was later lost at sea and their children were left destitute, leading Allan to suspect that Dick had cursed the family. The accused woman was executed a month later. In the eyes of the secular and ecclesiastical authorities, witches targeted not just individuals but entire communities. Accused witches had entered into covenants with Satan, with the ultimate aim of dismantling godly society. As James VI explained it, witches used a variety of methods, but all worked towards “the enlarging of Satan’s tyranny”. Interrogators were often less concerned with investigating specific acts of maleficium and more with posing leading questions about diabolic pacts. Thus Janet Barker, tried in Edinburgh in 1643, confessed that the devil promised her a red petticoat and gown, so that “she should be as trimly clad as the best servant in Edinburgh”. She thereupon “condescended to be his servant for half a year”. Others detailed sexual encounters with Satan, who might take the form of a man or a beast. In 1662, Jonet Braidheid from Nairn described how the devil sucked the blood out of her mark and spat it out over her head to rebaptise her, then had sex with her. He was “as cold as spring well water” inside her. He paid her afterwards, but the money turned red. English scepticism The Scottish privy council wielded significant power over witch-hunts, being able to grant or refuse commissions for local trials. There was no comparable state authorisation in England. Even James VI lost much of his fervour for witch-hunting after he inherited the English throne and moved to London in 1603. English elites had been known to mock the barbaric, superstitious ways of the Scots, and James was perhaps cautious of appearing credulous to his English courtiers. Moreover, it seems that he became genuinely more sceptical. In the years following his move south, he personally investigated a handful of cases of demonic possession and, in deeming them fraudulent, saved the lives of several women accused of summoning the offending demons. Nor was the English church involved in witch-hunting to the same degree as the kirk in Scotland. The English Reformation was instigated by Henry VIII, whose motives were more political than ideological. The church remained highly centralised, and, though parish churches were important hubs, they did not develop the same powers of social control as kirk sessions. In Scotland, the Reformation was a relatively radical grassroots movement dedicated to refashioning the nation into a place of unrivalled godliness. It introduced a Presbyterian structure that placed significant power in the hands of local elders. The relatively limited role of English clergymen in witch-hunting, as well as the more effective prohibition of torture, meant that English witchcraft trials remained largely focused on maleficium – the act of causing harm – rather than the more explicitly religious crime of diabolism. Demonological ideas were explored in popular pamphlets but were rarely voiced in courtrooms. An exception came during the 1640s in the chaos of the Civil War, when the infamous ‘Witchfinder General’ Matthew Hopkins spearheaded England’s bloodiest witch-hunt. In general, though, accused witches in Scotland were blamed for more dramatic and far-reaching crimes against Christendom than their English counterparts. The phenomenon fades By the late 17th century, witchcraft prosecutions were declining across Europe, and elite attitudes in Britain reflected that trend. Consider the large-scale Scottish witch-hunt in 1661–62, which involved at least 600 accusations and likely hundreds of executions. The privy council granted commissions for waves of trials, but officials soon began to worry that matters were getting out of hand. In April 1662, the council issued a proclamation declaring that “a great many persons… have been apprehended and hurried to prisons, pricked, tortured and abused… by such persons as have no warrant or authority so to do.” The council was taking aim at ministers and other local elites who had overstepped their commissions or neglected to secure them. The privy council subsequently became more reluctant to grant commissions for local trials. A growing proportion of those accused of witchcraft were tried centrally or by trained judges from Edinburgh operating in circuit courts, and defence lawyers increasingly challenged the evidential basis for witchcraft, resulting in far higher acquittal rates. The council also made efforts to clamp down on the illicit use of torture. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/05/0882400-2cmyk-57d7ce4.jpg" width="1644" height="1096" alt="A black and white sketch of various instruments of torture, including a sword, some shackles and a pyre" title="Instruments of torture used in 16th-century European witch-trials. Though illegal without a warrant from the privy council, torture was sometimes used in Scotland to obtain confessions" /> The lawyer George Mackenzie, lord advocate 1677–86, exemplifies the growing scepticism of legal professionals. He wrote in 1678 that he did not doubt the reality of witches, but believed that many “poor ignorant creatures” had been unfairly prosecuted in Scotland. He attributed confessions to the use of torture, and recounted speaking with an impoverished woman who avowed that she had confessed because she expected to starve otherwise; having been accused of witchcraft, she imagined that “all men would beat her, and hound Dogs at her, and… therefore she desired to be out of the World”. Prosecutions petered out in the early 18th century; the last is usually considered to be that of Janet Horne in 1727. She was reputedly accused of riding her daughter, who took the form of a pony, to pay homage to the devil; both were reportedly tried by the local sheriff and found guilty. The daughter escaped, but Horne was burned to death in a barrel of pitch. However, the evidence is uncertain. If this episode did take place, it may have been a lynching rather than a formal trial, without authorisation from the central authorities. Witchcraft was decriminalised in 1736, bringing an end to what Walter Scott called a “dark chapter in human nature”. However, the witch-hunts remain a culturally relevant and emotive subject. As recently as 2022, the Scottish government and the Church of Scotland made formal apologies for their historical roles in witch-hunting. And the attitudes and concerns that drove these persecutions are still germane today. Witch-hunting grew out of specific religious, political and cultural contexts – but reflected an enduring human tendency to turn largely powerless victims into enemies of state and society. Martha McGill is a research associate at the University of Cambridge. She helped develop two games exploring historical perceptions of witchcraft. You can download them here This article is from the May 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine
Satan & the sabbath: witchhunting in the Basque Country
Jan Machielsen reveals why supernatural stories of witchcraft convulsed the Basque Country in the early 17th century
Satanic sabbaths, magic potions and demonic toads – in the early 17th century, the Basque Country was convulsed by strange accusations of supernatural activities. A new book by Jan Machielsen explores why fears of witchcraft gained such traction in this isolated region on the French-Spanish border. He tells Ellie Cawthorne more about how overexcited judges, frightened children and geographical factors all played a role in fuelling the panic. (Ad) Jan Machielsen is the author of The Basque Witch-Hunt: A Secret History (Bloomsbury Academic, 2024). Buy it now from Amazon Malcolm Gaskill discusses a little-known 17th-century witchcraft case
HistoryExtra Academy witchcraft quiz – week four
HistoryExtra Academy history of witchcraft course
How much did you learn about witches in popular culture this week? Test your knowledge in our quiz
View Riddle on the source website Discover more learning from week four of the HistoryExtra Academy course on the history of witchcraft Video lecture: Witches in popular history, with Professor Marion Gibson – watching time 15 mins Wicca and modern witchcraft: a history – reading time 3 mins Zombies of the Caribbean: your guide to zonbi spirits – reading time 6 mins 5 books about witchcraft, selected by Professor Marion Gibson – reading time 3 mins The real magic of Harry Potter: 15 details the wizarding world borrows from history – reading time 14 mins Witches, werewolves and vampires: the Nazi's quest for the supernatural – reading time 13 mins Free download: Your essential guide to the history of witchcraft
Witches in popular culture, with Professor Marion Gibson
In the fourth and final week of our short course on the history of witchcraft, Professor Marion Gibson explores the enduring legacy of the witch in popular culture – from books to films – and takes a brief look at witch hunts of the 21st century
View Green Video on the source website Discover more learning from week four of the HistoryExtra Academy course on the history of witchcraft Wicca and modern witchcraft: a history – reading time 3 mins Zombies of the Caribbean: your guide to zonbi spirits – reading time 6 mins 5 books about witchcraft, selected by Professor Marion Gibson – reading time 3 mins The real magic of Harry Potter: 15 details the wizarding world borrows from history – reading time 14 mins Witches, werewolves and vampires: the Nazi's quest for the supernatural – reading time 13 mins Free download: Your essential guide to the history of witchcraft
5 books about witchcraft, selected by Professor Marion Gibson
Professor Marion Gibson recommends five books about the history of witchcraft
Deadly Worlds: Witchcraft in the Bocage, by Jeanne Favret-Saada Cambridge University Press, 2010 (paperback) This book, first published in 1981, examines witchcraft beliefs and experiences in the Bocage, a rural area of western France where being bewitched is to be 'caught' in a sequence of misfortunes. The culprit, it is believed, is someone in the neighbourhood: the witch, who can cast a spell with a word, a touch or a look, and whose 'power' comes from a book of spells inherited from an ancestor. There, it is believed that only a professional magician – an 'unwitcher' – can break chains of misfortune which befall those who have been bewitched. The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft, by Professor Ronald Hutton OUP Oxford; 2nd edition, 2021 (paperback) In this updated edition, Professor Ronald Hutton presents a thoroughly revised exploration of modern pagan witchcraft, delving into the religion's essence and evolution, and tracing the historical trajectory of attitudes towards witchcraft, paganism and magic in British society from 1800 onwards. Within its pages, readers encounter a diverse array of characters, including village cunning folk, Victorian ceremonial magicians, scholars of antiquity and archaeology, leaders within woodcraft and scouting movements, Freemasons, and members of secret rural societies. Hutton also illuminates the presence of renowned literary figures – ranging from the Romantic poets to luminaries like WB Yeats, DH Lawrence, and Robert Graves – who have shaped public perceptions of pagan witchcraft since 1950. In the Devil's Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692, by Mary Beth Orton Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group; Reprint edition, 2003 (paperback) Award-winning historian Mary Beth Norton delivers an exhaustively researched and captivating analysis of the Salem witch trials. Set against the backdrop of 1692 Massachusetts, Norton unveils a society gripped not only by the spectre of satanic afflictions but also by the haunting aftermath of brutal Native American attacks that had ravaged the northern frontier, driving terrified settlers – including key accusers of witchcraft – to seek refuge in places like Salem. Amidst this atmosphere of fear and uncertainty, colonial leaders, grappling with their own inadequacies in safeguarding the frontier, wrestled with the divine implications of such suffering inflicted by indigenous peoples. Drawing striking parallels between the harrowing experiences of the refugees and the accounts of alleged witchcraft victims, many swiftly embraced a narrative of diabolical conspiracy, implicating the Devil, (in league with the French and Native Americans), in a malevolent plot to assail New England from all sides. In this work, Norton offers fresh insights into one of the most enigmatic and compelling periods in American history. America Bewitched: The Story of Witchcraft After Salem, by Professor Owen Davies OUP Oxford; Reprint edition, 2016 (paperback) The shadow of the Salem trials looms large in the collective memory of modern America, serving as a stark reminder of the perils of intolerance and persecution. Across the ensuing centuries, the refrain "Remember Salem!" echoed persistently, symbolising a societal shift away from its colonial past, its victims now the righteous and their persecutors the shamed. However, the saga of witchcraft did not conclude with the dawn of the American Enlightenment; rather, it ushered in a new, protracted, and chilling era. Beyond mere folklore and superstition, witchcraft post-Salem remained a matter of life and death, casting a pall over the American experience for many. In fact, the number of individuals executed as witches between 1692 and the 1950s surpassed those put to death prior to the Salem trials. Witches became entwined in the narrative of Native American decimation, the ordeal of slavery and emancipation, and the immigrant journey, leaving an indelible mark on the religious and social fabric of the nation. Yet, amidst the trauma, the history of American witchcraft between the 18th and 2oth century also unveils a tale of cultural exchange, revealing how diverse traditions intersected and influenced each other's languages and beliefs. Early Modern European Witchcraft: Centres and Peripheries, edited by Bengt Ankarloo and Gustav Henningsen Oxford University Press; Reprint edition, 1996 (paperback) The historical exploration of witchcraft and sorcery has sparked significant interest and debate, yet previous studies to this work predominantly offered insights from an Anglo-Saxon perspective. This book challenges the notion that phenomena traditionally associated with Britain were exclusive to that region, revealing instead their prevalence across much of northern Europe. By breaking free from the Anglo-Saxon-centric approach, this volume incorporates groundbreaking developments in the historiography of witchcraft. Drawing upon extensive archival research conducted by the contributors, this book presents a wealth of fresh material and perspectives. Among the themes explored are the intricate interplay between witchcraft, law, and theology; the origins and rituals of the witches' sabbath; the sociological and criminological dimensions of witch-hunting; and the comparative analysis of European witchcraft practices. Discover more learning from week four of the HistoryExtra Academy course on the history of witchcraft Video lecture: Witches in popular history, with Professor Marion Gibson – watching time 15 mins Wicca and modern witchcraft: a history – reading time 3 mins Zombies of the Caribbean: your guide to zonbi spirits – reading time 6 mins The real magic of Harry Potter: 15 details the wizarding world borrows from history – reading time 14 mins Witches, werewolves and vampires: the Nazi's quest for the supernatural – reading time 13 mins Free download: Your essential guide to the history of witchcraft
5 things you (probably) didn’t know about the history of witchcraft
Marion Gibson, the expert leading our new HistoryExtra Academy course, shares surprising facts about the wild accusations and witch trials that spread across the early modern era
Witchcraft is one of the topics covered in our series of four-week online courses, the HistoryExtra Academy, exclusive to members. The course is led by Marion Gibson, professor of Renaissance and magical literatures at the University of Exeter and author of Witchcraft: A History in 13 Trials (Simon and Schuster, 2023). Witchcraft | A short course from HistoryExtra Academy Member exclusive | In this four-week course, you’ll discover everything you need to know about the history of witchcraft, guided by historian Professor Marion Gibson Explore the course now Most witches were devout Christians Although people who identify as witches or Wiccans today follow a pagan religion, accused medieval and early modern witches were often fervent churchgoers. They lived in a European world in which Christianity saturated daily life. Many accused people explained to their interrogators that they used Christian prayers in healing spells, calling on God, the saints and the Holy Ghost. Some suspects belonged to fundamentalist Christian sects. At Salem in 1692, the convicted witches Rebecca Nurse and Martha Corey were among the most pious worshippers at their Congregational church. Joan Balls, accused in Suffolk in 1645, “professed Anabaptism” and was a “runner after the new sects” of Puritanism. Christian ministers in both Suffolk and Salem were accused of witchcraft. The vicar of Brandeston, John Lowis, was deemed to be insufficiently puritanical and was charged with only reading state-approved lessons in church. He recited his own burial service before he was hanged. Quiz | Would you have been accused of witchcraft? At Salem, Reverend George Burroughs repeated the text of the Lord’s Prayer – something thought impossible for witches – when he, too, was hanged. These good Christians were accused largely because they didn’t follow the same religious teachings as those who suspected them. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2024/04/GettyImages-1173433708-81a7df8.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="Rebecca Nurse, depicted by Shirley MacLaine in a 2003 TV drama, was hanged for witchcraft in 1692, despite being a fervent Christian (Photo by CBS via Getty Images)" title="Rebecca Nurse, depicted by Shirley MacLaine in a 2003 TV drama, was hanged for witchcraft in 1692, despite being a fervent Christian (Photo by CBS via Getty Images)" /> Thousands of those accused of witchcraft were men Ask someone to imagine a witch, and the chances are that that witch will be a woman. However, a significant minority – an estimated one in four – of those put on trial for witchcraft were men. Men were sometimes the target of witchhunts because they were related to accused women, or romantically involved with them. In Innsbruck, Austria, in the mid-1480s, a male potter was suspected primarily because he was allegedly the lover of an accused witch, Barbara Selachin. Other men fell under suspicion because they were thought to have turned their godly learning to bad ends. In late 16th-century East Lothian, the schoolmaster John Fian was said to have studied magical texts so that he could unlock doors without a key, and light candles with his breath. He was also accused of learning love spells and using his literacy skills to serve as a minute-taker at satanic meetings. In some countries, men actually accounted for the majority of those put on trial for witchcraft. In Iceland, for example, they were often accused of acting as priest-like shamans and seers. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2024/04/MC6P0W-1242e63.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="The schoolteacher John Fian – shown sitting at his desk below a preaching devil in a 1591 print – was said to have employed his literacy skills in satanic meetings (Photo by Charles Walker Collection/Alamy)" title="The schoolteacher John Fian – shown sitting at his desk below a preaching devil in a 1591 print – was said to have employed his literacy skills in satanic meetings (Photo by Charles Walker Collection/Alamy)" /> Witchhunts targeted Indigenous people The most famous witch trials in history were undoubtedly those that took place in Salem from 1692–93. Salem was a small coastal town in colonial Massachusetts. Yet not all of those accused were colonists. One of the people ensnared by the accusations was a woman known as Tituba of Salem. Tituba was probably a native South American, enslaved on Barbados and transported to Massachusetts by her employer Samuel Parris. Parris subsequently became minister of Salem village church. Listen | The HistoryExtra podcast series on the Salem Witch Trials Tituba was accused while she worked in the minister’s house (she was imprisoned for more than a year, but never faced trial). She no doubt conformed to her enslavers’ religion but doubts lingered that she was not wholly Christian. European settlers associated Native American religions, as well as those of enslaved Africans, with witchcraft because they were not Christian creeds. Such prejudices were almost certainly a factor in the accusations of witchcraft levelled against several Sami people – migratory herders who lived in the Arctic circle – by their Norwegian neighbours. Among those accused was a Sami woman called Kari Edisdatter. In 1620, Edisdatter confessed to meeting the devil in the form of a ghost, before being burned at the stake. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2024/04/B20KPA-fbd76f1.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="A 19th-century depiction of Tituba, the enslaved woman caught up in the Salem witch trials (Photo by North Wind Picture Archives/Alamy)" title="A 19th-century depiction of Tituba, the enslaved woman caught up in the Salem witch trials (Photo by North Wind Picture Archives/Alamy)" /> Lions and bears were thought to practise satanic magic In the popular imagination, familiars, the demonic animals believed to assist witches in casting spells, are most commonly cats and dogs. Yet those accused of practising magic could, it seems, call upon an entire menagerie of creatures. In 1582, Essex woman Elizabeth Bennett confessed she had a red lion as a familiar. In Suffolk, 60 years later, Margaret Wyard claimed she had called on the services of “flies, dores, spiders, mice” (dores were bumble bees, known as dumbledores). Margaret’s neighbour Anne Usher said her familiars were butterflies and a polecat, while another Suffolk woman, Mary Scrutton, revealed that her familiar was a bear. Read more | A sweeping history of magic – from witchcraft to shamanism The bear and lion might be explained by people weaving into their confessions images from inn signs or in heraldry, or remembering a travelling entertainer with a chained animal. Smaller creatures were more often cited during interrogations in which the accused was kept awake for days and nights under constant surveillance to see if demonic spirits visited them. Any tiny creature that came near might be identified as a familiar, and once that was suggested to a tortured suspect they might agree that the insects were devils. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2024/04/GettyImages-919777712-d1dccae.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="A 17th-century illustration of butterflies and other insects by Jan van Kessel. It was believed that witches were visited by devils disguised as insects (Photo by Ashmolean Museum/Heritage Images/Getty)" title="A 17th-century illustration of butterflies and other insects by Jan van Kessel. It was believed that witches were visited by devils disguised as insects (Photo by Ashmolean Museum/Heritage Images/Getty)" /> Not all witches were old, widowed and isolated Accused witches were often wives and mothers, fathers and sons with large families – and they could be surprisingly young. Eighteen-year-old Joan Waterhouse was put on trial in Essex in 1566, alongside her mother and a woman who may have been her aunt. Joan confessed to witchcraft but was acquitted, possibly because of her age. It was widely believed that witchcraft was an inherited skill and that witches’ children couldn’t escape indoctrination, and so juries showed mercy for some first offences. In France in the 1730s, a young religious mystic called Marie-Catherine Cadiere was sentenced to death for witchcraft against a Jesuit priest. But such was the outcry against the verdict in her home city of Toulon that the court decided to free her. In 1640s Suffolk, a boy as young as nine was questioned on suspicion of witchcraft. We don’t know what happened to him – he may not have been tried – but it’s reported that his mother was executed as a witch. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2024/04/BAL7309690-3565b59.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="The exorcism of the young mystic Marie-Catherine Cadière, in a 19th-century engraving (Photo by The Holbarn Archive/Bridgeman Images)" title="The exorcism of the young mystic Marie-Catherine Cadière, in a 19th-century engraving (Photo by The Holbarn Archive/Bridgeman Images)" /> This article first appeared in the May 2024 issue of BBC History Magazine
HistoryExtra Academy witchcraft quiz – week three
How much did you learn about early modern witch trials this week? Test your knowledge in our quiz
View Riddle on the source website Discover more learning from week three of the HistoryExtra Academy history of witchcraft course HistoryExtra Academy video lecture: witch trials, with Professor Marion Gibson – watching time 20 mins Rough injustice: what really happened at a witch trial? – reading time 6 mins The war on witches – reading time 12 mins Podcast series: Salem: Investigating the witch trials – 9 episodes Witches in the dock: 10 of Britain’s most infamous witch trials – reading time 10 mins The Pendle witches: what happened in the infamous Lancashire witch trial? – reading time 9 mins Video: Malcolm Gaskill on The Ruin of All Witches – watching time 1 hour When the devil stalked Salem: the story of the Salem witch trials – reading time 11 mins
Witch trials, with Professor Marion Gibson
In week three of the HistoryExtra Academy course on the history of witchcraft, Professor Marion Gibson takes a closer look at the process of trying an accused witch, and explores some of the most infamous witch trials in history: Salem, 1692
View Green Video on the source website Discover more learning from week three of the HistoryExtra Academy history of witchcraft course Rough injustice: what really happened at a witch trial? – reading time 6 mins The war on witches – reading time 12 mins Podcast series: Salem: Investigating the witch trials – 9 episodes Witches in the dock: 10 of Britain’s most infamous witch trials – reading time 10 mins The Pendle witches: what happened in the infamous Lancashire witch trial? – reading time 9 mins Video: Malcolm Gaskill on The Ruin of All Witches – watching time 1 hour When the devil stalked Salem: the story of the Salem witch trials – reading time 11 mins